Whoops!.... its another thought provoking 'flavour' thread!

Many anglers will be tempted to use some kind of flavours for high leakage in an attempt to attract fish - many are also designed to smell nice to attempt anglers to buy them too, but leaving that contentious point aside for a moment;

A little bit of background...
Science tells us that proteins and amino acids are damaged by heat processing and alcohol.
Specifically from an anglers point of view; I think few would argue that natural baits are best (including those containing unprocessed fresh real-food bait ingredients)?
Boilies are boiled with most of the flavour locked in, hard pellets are processed with high heat and extruded using a hammer mill, soft pellets are often preserved with alcohol, freezer baits with high water content can suffer cellular damage etc.

Fish have the ability to detect amino acids but not so if they have been ruined with heat or glugged with alcohol. I personally believe this makes the bait less effective because the fish are looking for nutrients - it is not looking for something that it finds hard to digest. The energy expended in eating something with minimal nutritional value will force it to call upon its own 'limited' bodily reserves to digest it. I say limited because all living creatures only have a limited ability to produce enzymes necessary to digest all what it eats, unless the food eaten is raw and unprocessed (100% natural), it will get ill and will die prematurely just as sure as anyone who mostly eats low quality fast food will get ill and die prematurely.


Here consider if you will, two types of fishery namely;

• Commercial urban fishery - heavily stocked and heavily fished by all and sundry
• Commercial suburban fishery - heavily stocked and fished infrequently

Which fishery will you catch more on if you used;
1. Artificial liquid flavours that smell nice?
2. Real-food liquid extracts that smell natural?


The same can be asked for local river stretches with easy access that see lots of angling pressure, and less for remote river areas?


Maybe a final question...(for those of you that don't use any kind of flavours) is it because;

1. Everybody else does and you think you gain the advantage by being different (edge)?
2. Because you have only ever used artificial flavours and never tried a real-food extract?
3. something else?

Thanks for your opinions.

laguna said:

The energy expended in eating something with minimal nutritional value will force it to call upon its own 'limited' bodily reserves to digest it. I say limited because all living creatures only have a limited ability to produce enzymes necessary to digest all what it eats, unless the food eaten is raw and unprocessed (100% natural), it will get ill and will die prematurely just as sure as anyone who mostly eats low quality fast food will get ill and die prematurely.

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Hmmm. I don't think I have enough knowledge to comment too deeply on this stuff but what do you think about the carp captures many have had on tiger nuts, where the nuts have been excreted whole and apparantly undigested yet by fish apparantly preoccupied by feeding on them? I've seen hundredweights of these nuts used on some waters by individual anglers, especially in France and Holland and the fish look pretty good on them. Perfect in fact!
I was listening to a gardening program on Radio 4 today where they were talking about lion and elephant pooh for fertiliser. It seems some creatures are very poor at digesting food - elephants especially, often excreting stuff virtually the same as the input feed. Seeds get spread and manured in this way of course, tomatos are famous for it. So I'm not so sure that creatures, including fish, do seek out nourishing meals. It could be they just eat everything they can stomache and get nourishment for some of it but not from all. Natures lucky draw perhaps?
As for the questions... I rarely use flavours but if I do it's garlic usually, or whatever is the going taste/flavour on a lake where anglers have 'trained' the fish to eat a particular flavoured bait by heaving in quantities of it in prebaiting campaigns.

laguna said:

Which fishery will you catch more on if you used;
1. Artificial liquid flavours that smell nice?
2. Real-food liquid extracts that smell natural?

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I've no idea, I use a bait because I think it will catch well based on experience (mine or others) of it, or because I hope it'll work well. Whether the bait is entirely natural or not is largely immaterial to me. In most instances I'd not know what was natural or not. Is my current choice of boilie, that invariably claims to be full of natural ingredients, highly digestable and high nutritional value, really those things, or is it full of indegestible garbage? Is the worm extract, that's been festering in my garage for decades, really a natural worm extract? Most baits, unless they can appear in the fishy environment entirely naturally (anything that can drop into or lives in water, bloodworm, worms, slugs, elderberries etc) don't appear to be totally natural to me. Some of the things we use are undoubtedly less unnatural than others though.

laguna said:

1. Everybody else does and you think you gain the advantage by being different (edge)?
2. Because you have only ever used artificial flavours and never tried a real-food extract?
3. something else?

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Similar story, I wouldn't necessarily know which baits/additives are more natural than others. Given decent results, I'm not too bothered, provided I don't think I'm doing harm to the fish.

One "natural" ingredient, that I've been lead to believe might actually be entirely synthetic, is the bloodworm extract used by one of the northern boilie manufacturers. If that is the case, it doesn't appear to impact on the baits effectiveness. Perhaps it would be even more effective if it were a natural extract, though I certainly wouldn't know. Knowing how much natural bloodworm costs, I dread to think how much a real extract would be.

I believe that being different can certainly be an edge but it doesn't appear to be entirely down to the nutritional value of a bait. If nutritional value was the absolute be all and end all, little bits of foam, zigs, wouldn't catch a thing.

geoffmaynard said:

Hmmm. I don't think I have enough knowledge to comment too deeply on this stuff but what do you think about the carp captures many have had on tiger nuts, where the nuts have been excreted whole and apparantly undigested yet by fish apparantly preoccupied by feeding on them? I've seen hundredweights of these nuts used on some waters by individual anglers, especially in France and Holland and the fish look pretty good on them. Perfect in fact!
I was listening to a gardening program on Radio 4 today where they were talking about lion and elephant pooh for fertiliser. It seems some creatures are very poor at digesting food - elephants especially, often excreting stuff virtually the same as the input feed. Seeds get spread and manured in this way of course, tomatos are famous for it. So I'm not so sure that creatures, including fish, do seek out nourishing meals. It could be they just eat everything they can stomache and get nourishment for some of it but not from all. Natures lucky draw perhaps?
As for the questions... I rarely use flavours but if I do it's garlic usually, or whatever is the going taste/flavour on a lake where anglers have 'trained' the fish to eat a particular flavoured bait by heaving in quantities of it in prebaiting campaigns.

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On the continent it is common practice to keep carp with trout on fish farms the carp thrive and remove the surplus protein from the trout **** in eastern Europe human excrement is feed to carp for the same reason. I have been told that this is also done on the quiet in Israel.

This is all technical stuff, but I think its sometimes not enough to know that something works (or doesn't), its also good to try and find out why or why not?

I said,
I personally believe artificial additives make the bait less effective because the fish are looking for nutrients - it is not looking for something that it finds hard to digest.
But it depends, its a trade off. Even if the baits are adulterated, it is not exactly sterile, it is not dead, maybe only part of it is.

If amino acids attract fish as is confirmed but are ruined, proteins are indigestible etc, then clearly something else makes them want to eat it.

Sure some artificial additives seem to attract fish for some reason (maybe its the nature-identical, but not exactly identical esters?) but ethyl alcohol is poisonous to all living things, it is not nutritious, destroys and denatures proteins and amino acids masks and alters taste and smell, so its difficult for me to believe they will take such a bait in preference and ignore danger out of just curiosity or even palatability. It killed the cat but then I don't suppose even a cat will eat something out of curiosity - certainly not repeatedly, and never more than 9 times.

This kind of stuff has bugged me for years.

Fish just aren't that stupid, they may even realise our bait is a trap yet are willing risk their lives repeatedly over an item of food that clearly spells danger for them. I can understand it if they were starving and had no choice though.

Maybe a hunger for, not quantity, but a certain nutrient(s) is the key?

With the exception of a feeding frenzy, the odd accidental capture (slip up), many fish don't just snatch and grab, some will definitely take the time to suss a bait out. Some of us have witnessed fish inspecting our bait at close quarters with polaroids only to flee at the very last second. Maybe the line or hook spooked them, or maybe Schreckstoff who knows? but some of them do get caught occasionally, so the urge to eat something within the baits must be very alluring indeed -even if they are adulterated with strong-smelling liquids.

Geoff, I do get your point about the technicalities, we are all anglers here so in some ways it makes sense to write in a easy to follow style but in answer to your point about ***t. Farmed fish are regularly fed chicken ***t and feather meal as you probably know, so clearly it is beneficial for them nutritionally speaking other wise they wouldn't eat it. That is my point, they will eat something if it benefits them somehow but avoid it otherwise. Does chicken ***t contain nutrients? sure it does, chicken ***t and hydrolysed feather meal is a rich dietary source of the sulphur containing amino acids (primarily cystine). The digestive tract of a chicken is very short, only 5 or 6 times its body length. Therefore, some of the eaten feedstuffs are excreted by the chicken before being fully digested. Carp have a similar anatomy (no stomach) but rely mainly on pancreatic enzymes to digest. Nuts may look whole and largely pass undigested, tigers (actually tubers) are like seeds in that respect.
Seeds will survive digestion from birds and will be deposited in other areas. The very process of acidification from the birds digestive system aids germination, plant seeds have evolved to exploit this. Fish will gain some benefit from eating them but only if anglers properly prepare them (example, a longer soak, sprout, malt or predigest and less boil time with minimum heat). Undigested is largely enzymatically 'predigested' and many animals and fish eat each others waste. I read that in some Asian countries chicken coops are placed over vents into water where the fish are fed by eating their waste.

Even if all the amino acids are nuked, fish may still detect all sorts of other things present and recognise them as nutritious.
Microorganisms feeding on waste matter produces organic acids for example, reason why mouldy smelly baits are eaten.

So, although artificial additives will denature amino acids which fish would otherwise recognise and detect as food, it might not be the be and end all because they may also recognise several other things present within the bait too - possibly even after they have been glugged up? On the other hand an organic acid produced by a mouldy bait may/may not be detected due to the effect of alcohol. The theory is that depending on molecular size, not all acids/alcohols will be absorbed to the same extent.
An artificial will sometimes attract them to your baited area (for some unknown reason other than curiosity or recognition of a weaned-on food source?), yet other times they will spook and avoid our baits like the plague. Killing those expensive proteins with an artificial flavour appears to be counterproductive to me. Maybe its just me but why lessen your chances by; (a) spelling danger/chance of blowing your bait? (b) nuking all those lovely amino acids? (c) potentially altering the chemistry of organic acids?


My personal thoughts are;
Artificial will work sometimes but not everywhere - its limitation is venue dependent and has a denaturing effect on baits
Natural/HNV will work everywhere but not always - its limitation is its pulling power (but can be used liberally without fear of overdosing)

Sam, I agree nutritional value is not the absolute be all and end all, and its difficult to know what is or isn't HNV/artificial with respect to shop bought boilies/pellets. Generally though if you can smell them and they appear to be overpowering or sickly sweet and deliciously yummy - you will know! :wh

I hope you don't take offence at this but I think what you are trying to say Laguna is complete hogwash to be honest with you mate.....like the two posters before me have pointed out, there are many contradictions to what some "scientific" anglers believe.

As one poster says....explain the reasons why a fish will eat a plastic sweetcorn or a plastic caster......I have seen several fish caught on a bare hook and have done it myself too....Maggots, probably the most reliable bait in the universe and has caught just about every fish that exist....and although I am not sure, I don't believe they possess the "qualities" you speak of....

It is my humble opinion that fish will eat ANYTHING they recognise as food...and of course that depends on the venue as to what that particular "food" will be.

Example.....I used to fish Topcliffe and Cundall on a very regular basis.....I caught many fish on casters with hemp as my feeder bait.....in those not so long ago days...it was all casters and hemp.....the regulars used to hair rig casters....that's how popular the bait was on those venues.

After a few years absence....I fished it a couple of years ago and couldn't get a squashed caster to save my life.......a fella came behind me around 5pm and told me I should be using Halibut Pellet.....so I changed over and within 10 minutes...a nice 7lb barbel was on the bank.....This of course, told me that anglers had been pouring pellets into those venues, probably in some great amounts during my absence....and now, that has become THE bait to use on those venues......The really ironic thing about it all is.....the catches don't seem to be any better than they were on casters those 10 years or so ago...so the switch to pellets now takes longer to prepare than casters did for no better results....well, for me anyway.

They will eat any bait that they recognise as food and for that to happen the bait has to be introduced to the venue in great amounts.....
Just like any other wild creature....they are simply looking for food...ANY food that will ensure their survival.

You say fish are not so stupid but I disagree.....fish ARE totally stupid creatures with tiny brains that do not have the capacity to think....they act solely on instinct.

We, as anglers take a simple pleasure or hobby like fishing and try to create something that is unnecessarily scientific....why do we do that?

The key to catching fish is locating them....if you can nurture and perfect the ability to do that then invariably you will have a good day....so long as you use the bait for the venue that is.....whatever that may be....

Maverick

One of my old friends was into bait for carp in a big way and was recognised as one of the leading lights in bait development in carp fishing circles during the 70s and 80s he had a very good understanding of the subject. He developed a bait over many seasons that according to all the research and what it was made up with should have been the be all and end all of baits. In the mid eighties this bait cost 18p per 18mm bait. Five anglers bait tested it on three different waters over one season it caught no more than a shop bought Richworth. This bought home to us all that there is no such thing as a super bait and that there never will be. How many times over the years from the days of PYM to the present day have you heard that this or that bait had the edge only to find out that it had its good days and bad days the same as any other bait. Yes bait is a fascinating and very interesting subject but do not let it lead you down the ultimate bait road because it is a blind ally.

laguna said:

Sam, I agree nutritional value is not the absolute be all and end all, and its difficult to know what is or isn't HNV/artificial with respect to shop bought boilies/pellets. Generally though if you can smell them and they appear to be overpowering or sickly sweet and deliciously yummy - you will know! :wh

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Ahh, zig foam smells of absolutely nothing, it must be HNV.:wh
Alternatively, that boilie I've been using that smells, rather delightfully, of maple, is, despite the fishmeal content, of no nutritional value to the fish. That explains why I don't catch on it. No, wait, I've had a shed load of fish out on it.

I've little doubt that I'm underthinking this bait lark. However, you are overthinking it and blinding most normal anglers with science. Science is great, but the majority just don't care. They'd make a paste of their own poop if it caught them more fish.

Marukyu are a fine example of a bait that sounds great and is reassuringly expensive. It sounds highly scientific, well thought out and researched (it may not be, but it sounds good). It certainly doesn't smell sickly sweet or remotely yummy. The minor snag is that it seems that it's very hit and miss as to where it works. For that reason, coupled with the high cost, most anglers are shying away from it.

The trouble is with bankside experiments into a baits effectiveness , i.e. fishing is that its just that fishing , there is no scientific method at all even if younaverage out 30 years fishing there are so many other factors as to why you may not be catching that you cannot make a truly methodical comparisom.

Maybe your bait was cobered by a rotting leaf , maybe you stepped on a twig and frightened them all away etc etc

sam vimes said:

Ahh, zig foam smells of absolutely nothing, it must be HNV.:wh
Alternatively, that boilie I've been using that smells, rather delightfully, of maple, is, despite the fishmeal content, of no nutritional value to the fish. That explains why I don't catch on it. No wait, I've had a shed load of fish out on it.

I've little doubt that I'm underthinking this bait lark. However, you are overthinking it and blinding most normal anglers with science. Science is great, but the majority just don't care. They'd make a paste of their own poop if it caught them more fish.

Marukyu are a fine example of a bait that sounds great and is reassuringly expensive. It sounds highly scientific, well thought out and researched (it may not be, but it sounds good). It certainly doesn't smell sickly sweet or remotely yummy. The minor snag is that it seems that it's very hit and miss as to where it works. For that reason, coupled with the high cost, most anglers are shying away from it.

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The Marukyu bait company have spent millions on there processing plant and research I have used some of the soft pellets and found them to be no different to other baits as far as catch rate goes. The same goes for their krill additives and hard pellet. The boilies I have not used but they are on a special at my tackle shop two bags for a tenner . All a bit disapointing

tiinker said:

The Marukyu bait company have spent millions on there processing plant and research I have used some of the soft pellets and found them to be no different to other baits as far as catch rate goes. The same goes for their krill additives and hard pellet. The boilies I have not used but they are on a special at my tackle shop two bags for a tenner . All a bit disapointing

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I've used their groundbaits, pellets and boilies. The JPZ pellets make for a reasonable change bait over normal pellet on some of my local waters, but not others. The boilies were bought because they were being sold off cheap. If nothing more, I was content that they'd be another little round ball that the fish could become familiar with and that they'd do no harm, even if all they became was "filler" to make my usual bait go further. Good job that I thought that way because, as much as I tried them as a hookbait, they never caught a thing, not even a pick up.

sam vimes said:

I've used their groundbaits, pellets and boilies. The JPZ pellets make for a reasonable change bait over normal pellet on some of my local waters, but not others. The boilies were bought because they were being sold off cheap. If nothing more, I was content that they'd be another little round ball that the fish could become familiar with and that they'd do no harm, even if all they became was "filler" to make my usual bait go further. Good job that I thought that way because, as much as I tried them as a hookbait, they never caught a thing, not even a pick up.

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I meet Roy Marlow the main mover of this bait in the UK about three year ago on one of his fisheries and he was doing some promo filming for the pellet he was very up on the idea. Because of his reputation as a very good angler across the board over many many yearsI was very interested. I have friends who fish with him a couple of times a year who are also good anglers and they say he has something special about him as a angler. On this bases I still tend to think he would not waste his time and reputation backing a non goer. But as you say you have not had the results you expected and neither have I. Perhaps another member on here has done better with this range of bait.

Back to basics, how long have anglers been using spam? A cooked bait and now enhanced with garlic flavouring. Hugely succesfull bait and artificial to the core.
Natural bait for fishing? slugs worms etc very much a minority in this day and age.
YES enhancing or producing a bait with flavouring undeniably works.

I think both sides of the argument apply.. on one hand you have attractor baits that contain very little food value and are laced with high levels of artificial flavouring. Carp will eat them because they are easy to find, taste good and are easily recognisable as a food source, albeit not a very nutritional food source. In heavily stocked commercials these are likely to be the best bait as the fish constantly compete for food, any food.

On the other hand I firmly believe that carp will search out food sources that contain protein, vitamins or minerals that they need to maintain a healthy body, when those things are lacking in their diet (the same reason why horses, cattle, dogs etc lick salt blocks). Humans also have cravings for the same reason.

The boiling process denatures amino acids and ruins them but, as long as the boiling time is kept to a minimum, not all of the amino acids will be destroyed. Amino acids are very attractive to all fish.. just look at the effectiveness of lobworms which comprise of a very high percentage of amino acids. Protein is needed to promote growth and are used as an energy source, and are made up of amino acids. When boilies were first conceived for the reason of providing a complete, balanced food source they took waters apart for the limited number of anglers using them, outfishing everything else. They weren't highly flavoured baits but had an inherent attraction provided by the ingredients. Other ingredients are also inherently attractive to fish such a green lipped mussel extract, liver, corn steep liquor etc which can provide quick attraction and ensure longevity of a bait.

Particles such as tiger nuts release sugars when prepared correctly which carp find irresistible at times but eventually the fish will lose condition if they don't supplement their diet with other food sources that contain everything they need. Sugars are carbohydrates which give the fish energy but they won't provide adequate nutrition for muscle growth.

I think that over a long period of time, on a water where the fish can be choosy in what they eat, a well balanced nutritional bait will outscore an attractor bait eventually if it has been applied in large quantities over a long period. Whether they see it as a preferable and easily available food source or whether they just don't recognise it as an obvious trap (ie highly flavoured attractor baits) is open to debate but my thoughts are that both apply. The longer the HNV baits are applied the better the results get, whereas the longer attractor baits are used the poorer the results get, over time.

Apologies if my ramblings are a bit disjointed; during the 70's, 80's and 90's I used to be well into the scientific side of boilies but that was a long time ago. It might highlight the point made by Tiinker though, that looking for the ultimate bait is a blind alley. There are good baits, very good baits and poor baits but there are so many variables in fishing that no one bait will outfish all others and you will send yourself round the bend looking for it.

What was the question again? mg:

aebitim said:

Back to basics, how long have anglers been using spam? A cooked bait and now enhanced with garlic flavouring. Hugely succesfull bait and artificial to the core.
Natural bait for fishing? slugs worms etc very much a minority in this day and age.
YES enhancing or producing a bait with flavouring undeniably works.

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it is meat and fat what could be more natural than that and yes it is a very good bait as was bacon and ham fat bone marrow and a few more animal products over the centuries.

tiinker said:

it is meat and fat what could be more natural than that and yes it is a very good bait as was bacon and ham fat bone marrow and a few more animal products over the centuries.

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Cooked meat and fat?

aebitim said:

Cooked meat and fat?

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Still a natural product like stewed hemp or wheat sweet corn all cooked a friend of mine swears by chicken cooked and raw I have used liver raw and smoked fish.

As I said before, the word natural when applied to baits is wide open to interpretation.

sam vimes said:

As I said before, the word natural when applied to baits is wide open to interpretation.

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It is a good point, I would casually class hemp and sweetcorn as natural baits although they go through the unnatural process of cooking as a preparation.

I doubt much other than the humble but faithful old worm and possibly the maggot come close to being a truly natural bait other than flies, grubs and larvae etc that you would expect to find in and around the water.

tiinker said:

Still a natural product like stewed hemp or wheat sweet corn all cooked a friend of mine swears by chicken cooked and raw I have used liver raw and smoked fish.

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It surely depends on what we term natural, I look on natural as something a fish would come across in its life without the intervention of man. So maize for example is natural as it grows in the ground but their are very few circumstances where a fish would come across it unless we introduce it to them. Worms, larvae, flies, elderberries, slugs etc are to my mind what constitute natural baits. Luncheon meat, sweetcorn, stewed wheat, hemp etc are not, maybe organic would be a better term.